2016 Season Preview - Men's West

It's no secret that the balance of power in the USAFL has shifted to the West Coast over the last half decade.  In fact, a total 26 Division 1 and Division 2 Grand Finals since Nationals began have featured at least one team from this West Region.

Featuring a mix of Aussie expats and up and coming American athletes who are hitting their stride as footballers, the USAFL West is full of clubs that have sustained long runs of success.  Some of them are heading back in that direction after a couple of years of rebuilding; teams like Arizona, San Diego, and Seattle among them.  But they can look at a team like Portland, who finally broke through last year, and show that with hard work and dedicated recruitment, they too can continue the push forward.

The teams are as diverse as the weather on the west coast, and these teams will be faced with all sorts of elemental challenges in addition to the specter of competing in the USAFL's version of the weight room. But either way, there is a lot of good footy here and it's only going to get better. 

Footy flourished in the desert for most of the first decade of the 21st century, with the Hawks taking home two national titles and the women’s side leading the way as one of the first female clubs in the country.

But over the last several years, participation has dried up a lake in one of Arizona’s world famous deserts, and though the Lady Hawks got a bit of a resurgence last year due to the Freedom national camp being held in Chandler, the men’s team has yet to recover to full strength just five years after taking out the D3 title at Nationals.

There has been some buzz on social media this year, just as there was last year, and the team appears to be training again.  Hopefully 2016 will the Hawks back in action as they try to return to their glory days.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Division 4

With all due respect to Ben Franklin, there was a time when there was actually three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and the Denver Bulldogs winning a National Championship.

It’s hard to believe that it has now been five years since the Doggies last played in a Division 1 Grand Final.  This is a team, after all, that has nine big flags to its name, and played in all but one decider between 2002 and 2011.  It looked like 2015 would be the year the streak would break.   

They rolled through with a 9-2 record, their only losses coming against eventual champion Austin, finishing ranked #4.  Tom Ellis had his team ready for a title run in a very tough group, and after dropping a heartbreaker to OC in the opening game, came back to win two commanding victories against New York and Dallas.  The streak would continue, but the ‘Dogs impressed in a 2-1 effort.

Denver’s philosophy has always been athleticism, and they are a team full of high fliers (which is ironic because real bulldogs don’t jump very high.)  Aussie veteran Casey Robertson has become famous for taking speckies and making clutch plays, including the two marks and goals that sealed the deal against New York.  Tom Harkness is another tall leaper, and Adam Wufsus’s ruckwork is among the best in the country.

Ellis, who acclimated himself moonlighting as coach for club and country last year, prides his team on playing disciplined footy, and that showed itself in the Bulldog defense.  Veterans Tim Wilson-Humphries, Ben Harling, and Andy Vanica tackle hard and are incredibly fit.  Peter Taylor has asserted himself as one of the best young American defenders, and his play will only get better as time goes on.

It’s really hard to ever discount the Bulldogs from any game at any time.  No matter how many players they turn over, they always fill in the gaps.  Mark it down, this is the year they get back to the Granny.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: High Seed, Division 1.

Golden Gate was one of the first clubs to develop itself as a local feeder system for their USAFL travelling team, establishing a number of teams at the metro level, forcing them to develop locally, and then taking the cream of the crop on as their top side.

They also play mostly tournaments, and they would have polarizing results in all three of the carnivals they visited, going 0-3, 2-0-1, and 1-1 in Sacramento, Oregon, and L.A., respectively.  But the results belie a deep and talented player pool, and the pollsters recognized that, giving them the #8 ranking and, as it turned out, the last ticket punched into Divvy 1.

Kyle “Manly” Johnson and crew came to Austin and nearly flipped the table.  All three games were close; they fell by nine to Austin after leading most of the way, then came back to get L.A. by 10 and squeak by Calgary in a 1-point thriller.  Their D4 team also went 2-1 on the weekend, capping off a solid Nationals for the GGAFL.

Golden Gate always gets through by a sum of its parts, and they have some darn good parts.  Bryan Dragus commanded the forward line for his team, and for the Revos last year, and the national team captain has the ability to wrench the game into his big, beefy hands.  Fellow Revos Jim Blocho and Tim Lindfelt are also coming off strong campaigns, and are excellent ball overs in the center of the ground.

One thing is certain, the Roos’ are D1 material.  It’s hard to see them not to be.  But they’re always a hard team to read, and if the groupings at the top are as unpredictable as they were this year, they may sneak back into the D1 Granny for the first time in 17 seasons.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Low Seed, Division 1.

Shuffle up and deal, footy fans, because the Gamblers are back.   Of course, they never completely went away.  After flickering in the hot, hot Nevada heat, the Gamblers’ flame as kept alive by one family.  Kurt Anderson, 60 years young, and his three sons, Brett, Cameron, and Matt went to Nationals last year and competed with Denver’s reserves in Division 4.

After spreading the word around Sin City, Vegas’ footy pulse appears to be beating again.  With Brett Anderson at the helm, veteran Gary Green returning, and impressive new recruits such as Jared Peruch, Oscar Hernadez, and Patrick Mahaney, the Gamblers have a good core to build around.

So far, training has been brisk and there is talk of a women’s team being formed, which is great news for yet another underdeveloped sports scene.  It’ll be a long trip to Florida to expect a large team to go to Nationals, but this is a very good return to full on footy.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Low Seed, Division 4.

Breaking free of their shackles as simply the “other” team in SoCal, the Dragons emerged as a legitimate Nationals contender in their first season of D1 play.  Despite finishing one game over .500 at 5-4, the Dragons put forth consistently good efforts throughout the year and, though they dropped three of four to rival Orange County, had shown that their play could back up years of confidence that they could beat just about anyone.

After hanging around the top 5 for most of the season, L.A. finished ranked 3rd, and with first year ruckman Donald Lee hitting peak form, it looked like the Dragons would flambé the competition.  But a win wasn’t in the cards; close losses to Calgary and Golden Gate were followed by a dismantling by an Austin team on a mission.

But in a year where gridiron returns to the City of Angels for the first time in two decades, its footy team is poised to be the one that grabs the headlines in 2016.  Though they have lost some key members such as captain Matt Hitch and defender Dan Dynon, they’ve recruited heavily and can boast of over 40 players at their early trainings.

The key to their success will be to capitalize on the athleticism and dominance of Lee in the ruck.  Quick midfielders David Dollar, Jeff Robinson, and Paul Iokaim will be critical in this, and will try to improve upon already good performances last year.  Australians such as Arny Martin, Justin Hall, and newcomer Justin Kenna lend their experience to a number of Americans new and old who will not only seek to make an impact for club, but for country as well.  One of them is Gabriel Martin del Campo, who plays with the same amount of flair and excitement that one would expect form a guy with the best name in the USAFL.

They’ll be thrown into the gauntlet again this year against some of the best clubs in the league, and that should harden them for a much better run in D1 this season.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Middle Seed, Division 1.

On the other side of the valley, the once languishing O.C. Bombers entered last season with a spark of determination after making it to the D1 Grand Final in 2014.  Despite losing their star forward Kenrick Tyrell to Austin in the offseason, they ripped off six straight wins to start the year, including a convincing sweep at the Western Regionals.  They hit a stumbling block in Portland at the Stumptown Throwdown, losing to Golden Gate and D3 Portland, which knocked them out of the top spot in the poll and into a 4th ranked finish.

The Bombers entered Austin on a mission, and after deftly getting by Denver in the opener, they squashed Dallas, then got revenge on New York for beating them in the ’14 Final, victoriously returning to the big stage with a win.  Led by the forward prowess of Lachie Agars and the downright savage play of SANFL import Jake Snow, O.C. stood toe to toe with the mighty Crows before Austin pulled away, meaning another year of silver medals. 

Chris Browne, who has served in good stead in the Bombers midfield, takes over this season from Chris McNeil as head coach, and his goal will be to lead this mix of athletes and newcomers up and over the mountain this year.  Young Scott Philips will be back, and adds a blend of speed and playmaking that compliments the defensive efforts of Snow and fullback Giles O’Driscoll.  Kenneth Reyes was a revelation up front, and he compliments Agars in the forward line with the ability to appear anywhere at any time in support.

Having shown that they can play with, and beat the best teams in the country, on paper it would appear that O.C. would be back in the D1 Granny for the third straight year.  The west coast teams provide a battering test, however, and it will come down to how well Browne’s team can last through the year.  But with Agars moving successfully into the front line, and a team with good chemistry around him, the premiership is very much in reach.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: High Seed, Division 1.

If you played a form of football in Portland that didn’t involve needless amounts of padding, 2015 was a good year for you.  In the same year that the Portland Timbers won the MLS Cup, there was another champion that emerged from the Rose City, one that was over a decade and a half in the making.

The Portland Steelheads have emerged as one of the fastest growing clubs in the country over the last two seasons, and they staked their claim with an impressive home win against Orange County and a draw against Golden Gate.  The fish swam into Austin looking to claim their first bit of hardware in club history, and darned if they didn’t do it, going 3-0 and then stomping home 26 point winners against a game Ohio Valley side.

The talisman of the team has been veteran Martin Coventry, who has played somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand USAFL games (though we might be off by a couple), who still patrols the middle of the field with the speed of a keen youngster.  Terry Brasch returned from his stint in Australia to lend athleticism and playmaking ability, while Johnathan Bornstein’s performance in the final established him as a bona fide goal sniper.  John Kim is probably the most deceptively dangerous weapon for Portland, as he is fast and has a devastatingly accurate kick through the middle and forward lines.

In 2012, the Steelheads played in Divvy 2 after moving up to fill after Arizona pulled out, and they got smashed in three games despite hearty efforts.  2016 should see them move back up, but this time they’re a much better team that could catch their foes napping come October in Florida.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Low Seed, Division 2.

It is quite common, in any sport, to see a team take the personality of their coach.  Matt Bishop has built his Suns to be well disciplined, with good fundamentals and a winning attitude.  After taking out the D3 flag in 2014, they believed they could do the same in Divvy 2 last year.

After bouncing towards the cusp of the top ten, Sactown would finish in 13th after taking out the Western Regional D2 competition and playing Austin and Los Angeles tough during the year.  Most punters had them finishing in the middle of their pool at Nationals, considering they were up against three strong teams.  After squeezing out wins against Boston and Minnesota by a total of four points, they would stiff-arm Columbus and go into the D2 final.  There they would finally meet their match, as Quebec would whitewash them off the ground.

Having made it into three straight grand finals with only one title to show for it, Bishop and friends will be determined to get back and win in 2016.  He has the best defensive midfielder in the country at his disposal in the omnipotent Saleh Tyebjee, who had a career year for club and country last season.  Aaron Crumpacker and Sean MacEachern add further athleticism into the center of the park, and Tocher Kellom adds quick reflexes to the mix.  A player to keep an eye on as a future star is young Ramish Bahramand who is slippery as an eel and whose skills are developing nicely.

The Suns are growing year by year and are a tight knit group on and off the pitch, and Bishop’s knowledge of the game and experience as Revo coach has his team on track for better things.  It will be a tough road back to the D2 Granny, but the Suns can certainly shine on through.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Middle Seed, Division 2.

A decade after becoming the third USAFL club to win multiple Division 1 titles, the Lions had slipped all the way down to Division 4, maintaining a hearty group of players looking to keep footy alive in the mission city.  A winless regular season against the heavy hitters of the USAFL from O.C. and L.A. behind them, they trudged into Division 4 with help from the Bombers reserves.

But thrown into the legendary blender that is the D4 competition at the USAFL Nationals, the Lions put on their best footy in some time, running through the group play and semi finals, knocking off Kansas City in the final, and hoisting their first cup of any sort since the 2006 triumph over Denver.

The momentum for the win has led to a boom in recruiting to start of the 2016 season, and their numbers will be higher this year, a trend that will hopefully continue.   Revo hopeful Justin Valley leads a fundamentally sound team of Lions, with veterans such as Brandon Blankenship and Brian Steffy anchoring the side.

It may still be one more season before the Lions are able to make the step back into Division 3, even with the victory here, but they’ll be more competitive against the likes of the Bombers and Dragons now that they have that championship feeling back.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Division 4.

The cheers from the epic 2009 D1 Grand Final against Denver have long faded, and the Grizzlies have been in rebuilding mode for the last several seasons.  In 2015, they went winless in USAFL play, but teamed up with their rivals from Portland to put a team together in Division 4.  A win over Houston/Baton Rouge was the highlight of their trip to Texas, but they would finish 1-2.

This season brings with it a sunny outlook, which has to be a case in a city where they refer to their weather as “liquid sunshine”.  Recruiting has been quite heavy so far, with an abundance of new faces and the possibility of a women’s team coming to fruition by the end of the year.

Two players lead the way for the Grizz, both with IC17 aspirations for the Revos.  Former college punter Kiel Rasp played stout defense for Seattle and the national team last season, and his ability to clear danger with that powerful leg of his is an understated weapon.  Second year player Max Depina is an agile fellow with good leaping ability and a raw set of skills that Revo coach Ellis hopes to mold into an all-around star.

With a regional slate of games that extends north of the border into Canada, the expanded Grizzlies side should be tested thoroughly.  Of course, the fact that Nationals is going to be literally on the other side of the country from them will hinder the chance of them bringing a full side, but one more year of solid D4 play should solidify a Seattle resurgence.

NATIONALS SEEDING PROJECTION: Division 4.